I came across a list of The Worlds Top 10 Weird Cookbooks and I thought I’d share the list with you. There’s certainly some interesting stuff here! So if you’ve always wondered if you can cook on your car engine or if people really eat roadkill, bugs, or actually cook while nude the answer is yes and there’s lots of recipes to prove it!
1. “Manifold Destiny: The One! The Only! Guide to Cooking on Your Car Engine,” by Chris Maynard & Bill Scheller (Villard Books, 1989, out of print). Meals on wheels, anyone? Utah’s Dian Thomas has also given directions for cooking under the hood of an automobile in some of her “Roughing It Easy” books. But given the price of gasoline nowadays, it’s probably cheaper to just use your stove.
2. “The Original Road Kill Cookbook,” by Buck Peterson (Ten Speed Press, 1987, $6.95). This one has spawned sequels such as “The International Roadkill Cookbook” and “The Totaled Roadkill Cookbook.” Yum.
3. “Eat-A-Bug Cookbook: 33 Ways to Cook Grasshoppers, Ants, Water Bugs, Spiders, Centipedes, and Their Kin,” by David George Gordon (Ten Speed Press, 1998, $16.95). Don’t complain about the fly in your soup.
4. “Special Effects Cookbook,” by Michael E. Samonek (MES/FX Publishing, 1992, $9.90). Sounds like you can use this one for your kids’ science experiments.
5. “Cooking in the Nude: Playful Gourmets, the Fun and Lusty Approach to Gourmet Dining for Two,” by Stephen Cornwell & Debbie Cornwell (Primavera, 1988, $3.89). I would be very, very careful around the stove!
6. “Cooking to Kill: The Poison Cook Book,” by Ebenezer Murgatroyd & Herb Roth (Peter Pauper Press, 1951, $15). This slapstick book boasts recipes to use on spoiled brats, business rivals and strayed lovers that will “make your friends die laughing.”
7. “Wookiee Cookies: A Star Wars Cookbook,” by Robin Davis (Chronicle Books, 1998, $1695). Recipes include Yoda Soda and Princess Leia’s Danish Do’s (modeled after Leia’s famous hairdo).
8. “The Mini Ketchup Cookbook,” by Cameron Pearl (Running Press Books, 2006, $4.95). What, no fry sauce?
9. “Cooking for Cats: The Best Recipes for Felix, Orlando and the Rest,” by Elisabeth Meyer Zu Stieghorst-Kastrup (Dumonte, 2002, $6.88). Actually, it’s not that weird to cook for your pet, considering the recent tainted pet-food scare.
10. “Strange Foods: Bush Meat, Bats, and Butterflies; An Epicurean Adventure Around the World,” by Jerry Hopkins & Michael Freeman (Periplus Editions, 1999, $5.99) This one gives new meaning to the term “global cuisine.”
